Vermont Secession Strategy

by Kirkpatrick Sale, Director
The Middlebury Institute

March 19, 2010—Thomas Naylor has just outlined the strategy that the Second Vermont Republic is operating under in a paper he has distributed this week. Though it is (very) specific to Vermont, where there are now at least nine candidates for the fall election, it should be of interest and perhaps instruction to secessionists everywhere. The text follows:

The Problem: The American Empire is the largest, wealthiest, most powerful, most materialistic, most racist, most militaristic, most violent empire of all time. It is owned, operated, and controlled by Wall Street, Corporate America, and the Israeli Lobby. It has lost its moral authority and is unsustainable, ungovernable, and, therefore, unfixable.

2. The Vermont Village Green. A place where people meet to chat, have a coffee, a locally brewed beer, a glass of wine, or a bite to eat; read a newspaper; listen to music; smell the flowers; and pass the time away. A place which is all about the politics of human scale—small towns, small businesses, small schools, and small churches. The village green is neat, clean, democratic, radical, nonviolent, noncommercial, egalitarian, and humane. A mirror image of the way America once was but no longer knows how to be.

3. David and Goliath Image. What could be more absurd than tiny Vermont, the second smallest state in the United States in terms of population, confronting the most powerful empire in history? The image of Vermont as an underdog is not likely to go unnoticed.

2. Neoliberals. The Democratic Party, most of the national media including ABC, CBS, MSNBC, CNN, PBS, and PBR. Senator Bernie Sanders, Senator Patrick Leahy, Congressman Peter Welch, and their political supporters.

Objectives:

The peaceable return of Vermont to its status as an independent republic [1777-91] and the peaceable dissolution of the American Empire.

Goals:

1. Political independence by 2015.
2. Dissolution of the American Empire by 2020.

Strategies:

1. Moral Authority. Challenge the moral authority of the U.S. Government, Senator Bernie Sanders, Senator Patrick Leahy, Congressman Peter Welch, and all of their collaborators.

2. Swiss Model. Unabashedly embrace the socio-economic, political model of Switzerland, the most sustainable nation-state of all time.

3. Imagine…Free Vermont. Launch a new political party whose aim is to elect state government officials and members of the legislature committed to Vermont independence. Once the party has a majority in the legislature, a motion will be introduced calling for a statewide convention to consider articles of secession. After these articles of secession have been approved by a two-thirds majority of the convention delegates, negotiations will begin with the United States Government for the peaceable departure of Vermont from the Union.